Virtual Goods Are Strangely Profitable Despite Economy

Virtual goods are selling very well; the sales are growing, even in this time of economic crisis.

In years before when virtual worlds were considered an entertainment phenomenon for geeks and nerds, most people thought spending real money on virtual weapons was ridiculous. These days, spending money for graphic art commodities is widely embraced, and it doesn’t seem far-fetched to send virtual presents like flowers on social networking platforms like Facebook.

Analysts estimated the market grew from 500,000 billion euros in 2007 to about 1.5 billion euros in 2008.

German company GameForge has proven very successful in this business; they are a market leader in Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs); Meltin and Gladiatus are 2 of their top hits.

GameForge sales increased by 350% in 2008; they won many awards, including the highly reputed "Technology Pioneer 2009" award.

The games require internet access in order for thousands of gamers to play together. GameForge has around a dozen of these games in more than 50 languages. A chat room is integrated into most of these games.

GameForge has over 65 million users worldwide and about 250,000 new ones each day.

Part of their goal is to acquire virtual goods; the more fun they want to have, the more they buy, the more they spend. Seafight.com, for example, requires players to purchase new weapons to stock aboard their pirate ships.
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